OPENING SEGMENT- okay
Roman came out to cut a promo, but Jason Jordan interrupted for no real reason, like a total dick. He seems to think he’s Dean’s replacement in The Shield. Jason Jordan has almost started to come across like he’s socially incompetent and just doesn’t understand why everyone gets so annoyed with him. Thankfully Seth Rollins came out spelled out to Jason exactly what he did wrong here.
Jason is insisting that they are a unit and says that they “might be the most dominant three-man group in the entire WWE.” And I really couldn’t think of anyone else who qualifies (if we exclude NXT) other than Miz & the Miz-tourage, and saying you’re more dominant than them is like bragging that you can run faster than a toddler. Even if we take Jason’s statement less literally and include women and mixed-gender trios, your competition is only Miz-tourage, the Riott Squad, Titus Worldwide, the Welcoming Committee, the Zo Train, and the Paige of the Fall. That’s really not tough competition.

Oh. Right. I forgot that The (Balor) Club is a thing now. Well… this should make for a pretty bad-ass six-man tag. I hope they give it a good half hour or so.
They cut a promo giving a lazy explanation for why they haven’t teamed together before now. Their explanation failed because it’s so obvious that the actual reason for it is “because Balor was a babyface and Gallows & Anderson were heels.” They Too Sweet each other, and Balor says that they are going to take over, having now one-upped the Young Bucks in their pretending to be the n.W.o. Jason Jordan retorts that Balor Club is dumb and that his “Champions Club” is better. This caused Seth to face-palm and Roman to look down and quietly shake his head in disgust… which Roman really has no right to do, because at least Jason Jordan has never uttered the phrase, “suffering succotash, son.”
Balor Club then called Jason Jordan a “nerd” and Jason responded to it as if it was a grave insult, slapping Gallows in the face. No one is coming off as cool here. Seth and Roman pulled Jason back, then Seth had to get between Jason and Roman so they wouldn’t fight.
Then Kurt Angle came out and said “we already have a great show planned, featuring Brock Lesnar and the return of The Miz, and I think I just found my main event.” First of all, Kurt’s plug was horribly unnatural. He was talking to the six wrestlers in the ring, and yet he still needed to plug sh*t on the show? No. The only reason this was done was that WWE wanted to get the plugs in the opening segment to make sure that people knew to stay tuned. A much more natural way to do this would have been to just stick some graphics in the beginning of tonight’s show and have the announcers quickly plug them at the top of the show like a normal wrestling show would. Instead, WWE went their way, where they rarely ever tell you anything via graphics first, even if it’s information that they should wanted you to know as soon as possible.
The other issue I had with this was the end of Kurt’s sentence. He claims to have “a great show planned” but doesn’t have a main event booked yet? You had a whole f*cking week to find a main event, Kurt! What the hell do you do all day?

SASHA BANKS & BAYLEY (w/Mickie James) vs. ABSOLUTION (Mandy Rose & Sonya Deville) (w/Paige)- 3/10
One of the announcers (it was either Cole or Graves) tried to get us excited about this match by telling us that the last time these two units faced off was weeks ago when they “became a backdrop to history” because that’s when Steph came out to announce the women’s Royal Rumble. Your wrestlers should never be the “backdrop to history.” They should be the ones kayfabe making the history.
You know Sonya Deville’s terrible “put your hair up and square up” catchphrase that WWE loves so much? Well in this match, she started wrestling with her hair down, just for the sake of being able to do a spot where she had Sasha down, then shouted at her to “PUT YOU HAIR UP AND SQUARE UP!” while taking the time put her own (very long) hair up. She came off like such a f*cking idiot… and that’s before you start asking yourself questions like “where does she think Sasha is going to be able to go get a scrunchie from in the middle of a wrestling match?”
The match wasn’t very good. I did, however, like that hot tag tease on the double down where the heels were able to tag themselves but stop the babyfaces from doing so. That was petty unexpected. Sasha eventually made Mandy tap out without the need for a hot tag.

CEDRIC ALEXANDER & GOLDUST BACKSTAGE- In order to get us excited for Cedric’s Cruiserweight Title shot later tonight, they stuck him in a comedy segment with Goldust, because that’s what gets people over, apparently.

MIXED MATCH CHALLENGE HYPE- hated it.
First Alicia Fox made me nauseous with all of her jumping around while holding the camera. Then I became even more sick of this when Corey Graves told me that some of the teams would be “real-life couples like Jimmy Uso & Naomi.” As opposed to what? A fake couple, like Enzo & Nia? And if they’re a real-life couple, how come they don’t offer each other moral support during their matches like other couples do? Miz & Maryse or Hunter & Steph, for example. If the f*cking heels can get this right, why can’t the babyfaces?
And hey! Rusev & Lana’s marriage is now a thing again. It’s nice to see that they finally remembered that.

“WOKEN” MATT HARDY vs. CURT HAWKINS- squash
I thought Matt wrestling meant I would have to get out of having to hear him speak, but unfortunately not. He cut an inset promo saying he would be in the Royal Rumble. Hawkins won clean with a Wrist-Clutch Burning Hammer.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- intolerable
Bray Watt magicked himself into the ring. Then they spent several minutes making noises at each other. If you were entertained by this then I don’t know what to tell you.

THE DRIFTER SINGS- this was just an overblown intro for the return of The Miz.

THE MIZ PROMO- it took him forever to get around to say that he wants revenge on The Shield for their totally unprovoked triple powerbombing of him through the announcers’ table. He also said he just let Roman “borrow” the Intercontinental Title so that it would be represented on TV while he was away filming his movie. He says that 218 will be the year he becomes the greatest Intercontinental Champion of all time. This promo was pretty meh.

BALOR CLUB BACKSTAGE- Anderson named some former drinking buddies of theirs, include “Tama” and “Fale.” Balor seems to be a bit more babyface than the other two, but I still don’t care for this trio from a character point of view.

ENZO AMORE PROMO- great

WWE CRUISERWEIGHT TITLE MATCH: Enzo Amore(c) vs. Cedric Alexander- no rating, good segment.
Enzo got busted open and bled quite a bit, but the most important part was that Enzo made it quite clear that he could have gotten back into the ring in time to beat the count but instead chose not to (using his injured leg as an excuse) and thus wouldn’t lose his title due to the count-out.

ENZO IS HURT; NIA COMES TO VISIT HIM IN THE TRAINER’S ROOM- fine

KURT’S PHONE ACTIVITIES ARE ACUALLY RELEVANT FOR ONCE- They tease a major returning star appearing in the women’s Royal Rumble.

SHEAMUS, CESARO, & KURT BACKSTAGE- Sheamus & Cesaro are getting their rematch at the Royal Rumble. Sheamus points out that he would have saved everyone some aggravation if he had just said that in the first place rather than hiding that information from them for no reason. He’s completely correct.
They also ask for a match tonight, so Kurt tells them to go out to the ring and he’ll find them some competition. So the only matches Kurt had booked in advance for this week seem to be the Cruiserweight Title match set for last week that had to be postponed because Enzo got sick, a random match involving the same mix-and-match women’s pairing we get every week, and a match between Matt Hardy and a jobber.

SHEAMUS & CESARO vs. APOLLO CREWS & TITUS O’NEIL (Dana Brooke)- 4/10
Um… holy sh*t Titus O’Neil just pinned Sheamus. The only logical reason for this is if they are adding Titus & Crews to the tag title match, which seems like a bad idea to me.

PAUL HEYMAN (& BROCK LESNAR) PROMO- good

MONSTER’S BRAWL- Kane jumped Brock from behind. They brawled backstage, where Braun ran in. He crushed Kane and Brock with several heavy things, included pulling down a giant metal scaffolding on top of them. This scaffolding seems to serve no practical purpose, meaning it is there solely so that Braun could pull it down onto Kane and Brock in an attempt to cripple them. Brock got stretchered off (although he didn’t want to). Kane managed to get up under his own power.
Corey Graves and Michael Cole would both describe Strowman as having gone “too far,” which is a phrase that I don’t ever remember being used EITHER TIME SOMEONE TRIED TO MURDER BRAUN LAST YEAR.

SAMOA JOE vs. RHYNO (w/Heath Slater)- 2.5/10
Short.

CHARLY CARUSO INTERVIEWS SAMOA JOE- Joe cut an AWESOME promo saying he was in the Royal Rumble. Charly brought up some other names who will be in the Rumble, and upon mentioning John Cena, Joe interrupted her and vowed to eliminate Cena first. So I guess we’re getting the UPW-showdown at WrestleMania.

ALEXA BLISS! & NIA JAX BACKSTAGE- loved it!
These two managed to take atrocious WWE dialogue and make it work. The idea here is that Nia saw through all of Alexa bullsh*t, and while they are still friends, that might change Alexa keeps trying to manipulate Nia like she did here.

ASUKA vs. A JOBBER- no rating, good segment.
Nia Jax jumped Nia and destroyed her, although the previous segment made clear that she is doing this to better her chances of winning the Royal Rumble rather than because she believes what Alexa said that Nia called her.

BALOR CLUB vs. SETH ROLLINS, ROMAN REIGNS, & JASON JORDAN- 7.5/10
Corey Graves said something about Balor Club “being the elite” within the wrestling industry. I’m sure that wasn’t an accident. Balor Club win when Jason Jordan had the ref’s attention so Seth couldn’t make a tag, resulting in Seth eventually being pinned by Balor.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- The Miz-tourage jumped Seth, Roman, & Jason from behind, specifically targeting Roman and laying him out with a Triple Powerbomb. Good build to the title match.

An uninspiring episode of Raw. Lots of short matches and angles, many of which were meh at best.

ALEXA BLISS! & NIA JAX BACKSTAGE- loved it!
These two managed to take atrocious WWE dialogue and make it work. The idea here is that Nia saw through all of Alexa bullsh*t, and while they are still friends, that might change Alexa keeps trying to manipulate Nia like she did here.

ALEXA BLISS! & NIA JAX BACKSTAGE- loved it!
These two managed to take atrocious WWE dialogue and make it work. The idea here is that Nia saw through all of Alexa bullsh*t, and while they are still friends, that might change Alexa keeps trying to manipulate Nia like she did here.

that's it guys, Red has lost it. Are we celebrating Bizarro day?

It's weird, but they make it work. It's not "good" so much as it is "logical and entertaining."

So... because I am very out of the loop... How do we feel about these new girls? This is the first episode of RAW I watched all the way through in like two months so I have no idea how to feel.

The idea seemed like it had potential in the very beginning (especially the SD crew), but both groups have since been made to feel completely and totally like just any other random women on the roster rather than something new and/or dangerous, and/or special, and the Royal Rumble announcement basically exposed that the only reason they got called up was to fill out spots in the Rumble. They've got no plans for them past that, and they will flounder around aimlessly once that is done.